“Watchers
” was the first book that I’ve read written by Dean Koontz and since then, I’ve been a fan. Through the years, I have picked up his books but had “lost touch” beginning 2005.
So, reading “The City 
” is like getting reacquainted with an old friend. And after finishing the book, I asked myself why in the world did I stop reading Dean Koontz in the first place? “The City ” is so good it is hard to put down once you start!
The story of Jonah Kirk, a music prodigy during the 1960s, “The City ” is told on a first person account of an older Jonah who is already 57 as he recalls the events in his childhood which forever changed his life.
Sweet, poignant, even daunting at times, “The City ” fused real-world events into a fictional story using pivotal moments in world history as markers in Jonah’s story. Thus, though there are touches of paranormal in the story, the real-world events keep the reader grounded and give the feeling of living through the events.
And that is quintessential Dean Koontz! He can make scary scenes more frightening because the setting is so ordinary, something you see every day.
Because music is the element that binds all the characters in “The City ,” this book made me think of Ludwig van Beethoven and the three periods of his compositional career in relation to Dean Koontz as a writer.
Having read Koontz’s work from the 1980s (Whispers and Watchers) which deals with struggles and heroism, and finding him again in “The City” which is cerebral, intense and highly personal, I see a parallel between the great composer and the author.
Like fine wine, Beethoven’s work got better as he aged; and so is Dean Koontz’s writing!
